Do you have a formal dining room?

[BabyH]

I'm just asking because, as a SAHM, I am realizing just how much stuff we have in this house!! In our kitchen we have a huge island, large enough for at least 4 chairs (we only have one at the end, because the rest are in the attic) AND a dining table, with four chairs.... AND we have a formal dining room with the biggest dining table I've ever seen. I just think we could streamline..... and make the "dining" room something else....

[KHF]

Our "formal dining room" currently houses my desk, DD's desk and our treadmill. No dining table at all.

[Indianamom2]

We do have a formal dining room....but it has never functioned as one. Currently is a the "catch-all" room and desperately needs a new purpose (and a major decluttering/cleaning.

It has a bookcase, filing cabinets, full-size digital upright piano and all my music books, and the glider/ottoman from the nursery. Plus some other stuff....

[HIU8]

Yes, we have one. HOWEVER, we are the ones who host ALL the holiday gatherings--so at least 4 times a year it's used and up to about 8 times a year. We normally have between 13 and 25 people. FWIW we actually have a jr dining room set (that was my grandmothers). When it finally starts to fall apart we are going to opt for a less formal dining room, add an island in the kitchen and get a kitchen table that expands to seat at least 12.

our kitchen has a table for 6 that expands with a large leaf. We can fit 10 comfortably around it, so we have done informal large gatherings in our kitchen. For holiday's though, it always the dining room (I use the kitchen table as the buffet area).

DH used to work in there as well (until we converted the guest bedroom into an office). Guests now sleep on the pull out sofa in the living room.

[pomegranate]

We had a formal dining room but it was getting so little use that I repurposed it last year so that it's now a second living area. I hated letting go of my dining table, but I'm really happy with my new room now.

[SnuggleBuggles]

No eat in kitchen but a dining room. I don't really know what makes one formal or not?? I don't know homes that have 2 dining rooms so is it a formal drm if it's your only eating space? eta- my drm furniture is nice and the space is pretty but it is still casual. We don't dine on china and with silver in there. :) It is our every day eating space.

[vludmilla]

We have a small house but we do have a formal dining room that doesn't get much use. We also have a small EIK which is where we eat most of our dinners. I am tempted to repurpose the room but then I wouldn't have a sit-down space for when we have dinner parties or holidays.

[MMMommy]

We have a formal dining room that we use once in a long while when we have guests over for dinner. All other times, it becomes a table cluttered when my supply of drinks, snacks, etc. So a clutter table the majority of the time, a usable formal dining table when needed. We also have a casual dining table/area near the kitchen, which gets normal use.

[american_mama]

Yes, but it's the place where eat daily. We have a 1960's ranch and you must walk through the dining room to go to the kitchen, so we walk through and use this room multiple times a day. Our kitchen is just barely an eat-in kitchen, with enough space for 3 people to eat at a small table. Our dining room furniture is fairly casual, which is what we wanted for our daily eating space.

Interestingly, our neighbors have the exact same floorplan except their kitchen is a little different, and they eat in their kitchen every night. I'll have to ask other neighbors with the same floorplan what they do.

[mommylamb]

We have a dining room. It gets used occasionally. Our kitchen has a small eat-in area that fits a table for 4, so that's what we use on a daily basis. If we have guests, we use our dining room.

[crl]

Kind of. We have a open living room dining room. We have a dining table and we use it regularly to eat as well as for homework and unfortunately as a dumping ground for stuff. Our kitchen has a very small table. It is a tight fit for all four of us to eat there.

Catherine

[artvandalay]

Yes. We rarely use the dining room (just Christmas and Easter dinner) so I converted it to the "homework room"

DS does his homework there. I have a sidetable with stackable paper organizers with construction paper, and we have all the crayons, glue, pencils, etc. Basically it is the artwork/homework table now.

[happymomma]

We used to have a formal dining room but our kitchen was so small. We ended up knocking down the wall between the kitchen and dining room. We expanded the cabinet area and put in a big island. We eat at the island most often but we also sometimes use the kitchen table. The kitchen table can expand to seat up to 10 people. SO the nice thing is that we have the best of both worlds. My kitchen no longer feels cramped but open. I love using the island to eat. Much easier to clean up. It used to feel like such a waste of space having a formal dining area because we almost never ate there. Our dining room was also very small so now it is the perfect size for us.

[BeachBum]

Our dining room has been repurposed.

We eat most of our meals at the island, or on the screen porch. We do have a "breakfast room" table, but we rarely use it.

[ett]

Our formal dining room has been re-purposed into the kid's play area. I don't think we will ever get that space back!

[BabbyO]

yes and no. Our house does not have a "formal" dining room in the traditional sense of the word. However, due to the VERY limited space in our kitchen, we have re-purposed a 4-season/den type addition to be the "formal" dining room.

Really it is the only place we could fit a table that seats more than 4. It is an addition that was added between the garage and kitchen so it also serves as a catch all for wet/snowy clothes in the winter, etc. When we have anyone over it gets used as the dining room. The table in our kitchen really only seats 3 comfortably...four is a VERY tight fit.

With #2 on the way, we may try to add a small desk in one corner so there is office space upstairs...but we haven't made a final decision on that.

[mommytoC]

Our current "formal" dining room serves as our office. We're hoping to build a new home in the next few years, and have a (true) dining room (not just a breakfast nook) extending off the back of our house.

[daisymommy]

We used to.
Our floor plan is such that it goes family room which flows into casual dining area and then kitchen. There is a wall on the backside of the kitchen, and then on the other side was our formal dining area, with polished cherry wood furniture, huge china hutch filled with my Grandmother's china and crystal. We only ate in there for special occasions and holidays. I felt like no one could breathe in that room, I was afraid the kids would scratch the furniture.

Our family room that we spent all our time in was so small, it drove me crazy to be in there with the kids.

So, we sold all the formal furniture, boxed up Grandma's good dishes (which was sad), and turned that room into our single dining area with an everyday dining table and chairs set.
This meant the family room now grew by 50% in size, not using the previous casual dining space.

It's worked out great for us, and was such a practical decision. I do miss it a little for big holidays though. But that's okay, I just dress up the table and it still looks great.

[hillview]

Not really. We have a large eat in kitchen -- sort of an extension of our kitchen which fits a table to seat 8 but it is basically IN the kitchen so not at all formal. We have a room right off the kitchen which COULD be a dining room but is a playroom and we have no regrets
/hillary

[AngelaS]

We have a formal dining room, but it houses the piano and my sewing stuff. It's my sewing room.

We also have a formal living room or den and we use it as the school room.

[boolady]

Not really. You walk into our kitchen in the middle, so that the cooking side (appliances, cabinets, etc.) is to your left, and the right side is the entire eating area. It's huge...we have a table in there that seats 8 and extends to seat 12. We also have a hutch and DD's play kitchen over there. If we do move to a house with a separate dining room, we'll put that table and hutch in the dining room and a smaller round table in the new kitchen.

[ThreeofUs]

Yes. But we have a big kitchen, a breakfast room, and a formal dining room.

So the kitchen is a free-movement space - no toys allowed, the b'fast room is where the kids eat and play on a small table, and we eat in the dining room.

[elektra]

We have a formal living room/dining room combo. It's very open, and I love all our furniture in there but we don't actually spend a lot of time there! We do host a lot of family get togethers so it does get used, just not by us. ;)
I might use it more but the kids can tip their tripp trapps easier in there because of the table design and mat we have under the table.
So we eat in our more casual kitchen area which also had a dining room table that seats 8.

[zag95]

We have a "formal" DR that you walk thru to get to the kitchen (we live in a ranch). In it is our table (it's a mission style) and china cabinet. We do quite a bit of family entertaining, book clubs (for me!), and various other events. When not using for formal dining, I will lay out scrapbook stuff there- or other odds and ends, as needed.

We also have a kitchen table- which is in an awkward space right off our kitchen (I think it's supposed to be a FR, but it's too small has too many traffic patterns to effectively be a FR.) Our table is fairly big- we also have our computer desk and filing cabinets out in this space.

[lec]

We have a room that is suppose to be a formal dining room but we don't use it for that purpose. Actually we just built this house about 10 months ago and we didn't have a formal dining room at the old house - so we had no table and chairs to fill the space. Currently the piano and some of DD toys are in there. We do plan on buying a bigger table - I just haven't found anything I love yet. We use our morning room that is off the kitchen which has a table for 4 on a daily basis.

[kbud]

Our formal dining room is a toy/play room. We don't do any formal entertaining so it seemed a waste to use it as that. It works great as a toy room.

[MelissaTC]

We do. It flows to the formal living room. It what we consider the adult side of our downstairs. We use the dining room fairly often as well as the formal living room. I also tend to host big holiday dinners and enjoy having the seating. We didn't use these rooms for this purpose until a few years ago. They used to be M's playroom and my scrapbooking room.

[JTsMom]

Our formal dining room is now our school room.

[Pear]

No. We have a large eat-in kitchen that opens up into the upstairs living room. We rarely used the formal dining room in our old house and the truth is that it only could have handled about 8 people. With our current setup I can add folding tables with nice tablecloths and create one long table that extends into the living room area. I could probably seat 20 reasonably easily.

[JoyNChrist]

Yes, but I just converted it to a playroom, and it is FABULOUS. It's connected to the kitchen and thebliving room, so I get tons of work done while the kids play there.

[WatchingThemGrow]

Not really. You walk into our kitchen in the middle, so that the cooking side (appliances, cabinets, etc.) is to your left, and the right side is the entire eating area. It's huge...we have a table in there that seats 8 and extends to seat 12. We also have a hutch and DD's play kitchen over there. If we do move to a house with a separate dining room, we'll put that table and hutch in the dining room and a smaller round table in the new kitchen.
:yeahthat: We have the same type of thing - late 50's ranch with one long useful room. When we host large gatherings, we take the rectangular table from the kitchen (used for kids' drawing table/desk apprentice) and put it with the dining table to seat as many as 17. In my next home, I'd love to have a large formal dining room to sit and eat by myself while DH and DC eat in the other room. :D

[bubbaray]

Yes, and it is used very rarely (twice a year?) as a dining room. We put the piano in there because in our open-plan house, it had pretty much the only interior wall long enough for a piano.

[maestramommy]

We do. But at the moment it's not being used as a dining room unless we have a large gathering and need more seats. It's usually the kids' "safe" playroom, my sewing room, holds the drying racks. Sort of all purpose. In the future we want to make it the kids' study, with the option to turn it into a dining room when needed.

[PAfirsttimemom]

We do, but we only use if for formal dining once or twice a year. It tends to become a dumping ground for stuff and odds and ends furniture (a bookcase, a piano, Nana's blanket chest) we can't find room for. It's very crammed, but we can sort of make it presentable when we're hosting a gathering. It's not a huge room, though, and the table is pretty small, seating only about 8. We have a pretty big kitchen with an eating area, and that's where we have our daily meals. I think if I won the lottery, I'd want to consider knocking out the wall between the kitchen and dining room and making it one large area. We'd consider expanding the tiny powder room and adding a mudroom, too (we enter the kitchen directly from the garage and have nowhere to take off wet coats, muddy shoes, etc). We use our formal living room as a playroom.

[gatorsmom]

Yes. It has a table that can seat 10. Otherwise, our daily table is right off the kitchen and can only seat 6.

[TxCat]

Yes, and we use it pretty regularly. We have a small table in the kitchen that we can sit 3-4 people at, so we usually use that for breakfast and dinner. But we always eat dinner in the dining room. We also entertain pretty frequently - less so post-baby, but still around once a month, and then I tend to have people over for Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve.

Finally, DH and I use it for work and study as well - right now there are books spread out all over the table.

[mackmama]

Yes but we so rarely use it. It's really a waste of a room even though I think it's one of the prettiest in our house (probably because we rarely use it LOL)

[LexyLou]

Yes, we have one. HOWEVER, we are the ones who host ALL the holiday gatherings--so at least 4 times a year it's used and up to about 8 times a year.
:yeahthat:

I actually do use mine quite a bit. We have parties a lot. Our kitchen table seats 6-8 and we have a little breakfast bar that seats 2, but often I'll use the kitchen table for appetizers while people are milling about and the breakfast bar for drinks and then we'll sit for the main meal at the dinning table. I know a lot of people don't use theres but we really do. We also use our formal china and silver at least 2-3 times a year.

I honestly couldn't move to a house without a formal dining room.

[Karenn]

Yes. It's connected to the eat in kitchen and the living room. However, 90% of the time the dining room table functions as the kids' desks for homework. They keep their school supplies there and we clear it off when we're having enough company that we need to use the dining room.

[georgiegirl]

No. We have an integrated kitchen and dining area, which has a large square table (seats 8, but can be expanded to 12). And we have bar stools on one side of the island foe eating too. We eat our meals at the main table though.

[hellokitty]

We have one and it IS furnished as a formal dining room. However, we only use it a few times a yr for family get togethers or holidays. Usually, I pile a bunch of misc crap on the dining table that I don't know what to do with or that I don't want DS3 to mess with.

[ahrimie]

No eat in kitchen but a dining room. I don't really know what makes one formal or not?? I don't know homes that have 2 dining rooms so is it a formal drm if it's your only eating space? eta- my drm furniture is nice and the space is pretty but it is still casual. We don't dine on china and with silver in there. :) It is our every day eating space.

We have 2 dining rooms. One is right by the kitchen and kind of the same "room" whereas the "formal" dining area has a small entry way into from the kitchen. The formal dining area is kind of the same "room" as the formal living area. The "formal" areas are what you see when you first walk into the house from the front.

We don't use these rooms much AT ALL :( We have a baby grand piano, a couch, coffee tables, and then a formal dining set.. but these only get used when we host parties or have a lot of people over. DH and I do like to entertain though so it gets used throughout the year, just not on a daily/weekly basis.

If there were a good idea/room to repurpose it to, i'd be game though!

[vahnessuh]

We do have a formal living room... but we're using it as a library. Basically, we only have bookshelves in there and my daughter's easel. That's it. I know that furnishing it as a dining room is just going to be a waste since we won't be using it a lot. Our eat-in area in the kitchen is big enough for a square dining table that seats 8 and we spend a lot of time in there. And with our current set up, the formal dining area is being used daily. Our formal living room is set up as a playroom.

[MontrealMum]

Technically, yes, the house has a formal dining room including a built in breakfront, stained glass and wainscoting. But we use it as a den...though I do store my china/crystal in the built-in breakfront. Hey, it's there, what else would I use it for? We just don't have many occasions to be using a "formal" dining area to devote such a lot of square footage in our small home to be basically unused. We have an eat-in kitchen and this has been fine most of the time. Our whole house has kind of a "formal"/vintage vibe as it was built in the early 1900's with wainscoting all over, fancy moldings, and stained glass. We just try to ignore some of that and use the rooms for the best purpose for *us*.

[hwin708]

We have a long formal dining room, that has a large entryway into a very wide formal living room.
The dining room table seats 12, and can squeeze 14 if I change out the chairs for narrower ones. I also had very simple and unattractive tables made that I butt up against the dining room table and run through the living room, essentially forming a huge T-shape table that can fit 35 (though we have squeezed in a few more). I just cover them with table cloths to hide that they are basically long pieces of plywood with metal screw in legs.

We eat daily in the sunroom which is right off the kitchen - that table fits 8. The formal areas are pretty much used for big family gatherings. I also host a lot of parties and showers and the like throughout the year, so I typically use the dining room table as a buffet space, while everyone parties in the living room.

So while it isn't daily use, I would never want to lose that table or re-purpose the room. It serves a very essential purpose when I need it. But I'm also not short on space for my daily needs. If I were, this might be a different story.